The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  ‘Only the mad earwig. I brought him up to give him some cough mixture to make him better, but you can have him if you want him.’

  Auntie Bina thought it over.

  ‘I don’t think I need one,’ she said. ‘Better leave him free.’

  Later, when they were finishing tea, Pidge told them about the roadworks.

  ‘Wasn’t there even a rheumatic drill?’ Brigit wanted to know. She took a great bite of bread and butter and scraped the last of her egg from inside the shell.

  ‘Maybe it’s The Martians,’ Auntie Bina said, because she was very interested in Outer Space and was always reading books about it. Sometimes she would stand on the small hill at the back of the house, with a seaman’s telescope held up to one eye as she looked for Flying Saucers. Pidge laughed at the idea of the Martians doing roadworks for the County Council and then he was conscious of the lovely lightness of feeling that filled his whole body after laughter.

  ‘It wasn’t The Martians,’ he said and he was really sure of that.

  But, he thought, somebody must have done it, after all. Apart from the old angler—who else was on the road at the time? He had a vague feeling of missing out something important. Then suddenly he asked:

  ‘Did you see anyone pass by on a motor-bike?’

  ‘No,’ Auntie Bina said.

  ‘I did,’ Brigit said matter of factly. ‘Two queer ones with loads of dogs. One of them had two miles of red hair floating out behind her like a cloak and the other one had sort of blue hair twisted round her head like ropes. The blue one was smoking a cigar. The dogs were skinny and they ran like water. They waved at me but I pretended I didn’t see them, ’cos I didn’t like the look of them.’

  ‘Ah, they must be tourists,’ Auntie Bina said, laughing at Brigit.

  ‘Brigit! We have enough with mad earwigs,’ Pidge exclaimed sharply, because he wanted to really know and not just be amused by one of Brigit’s stories.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said calmly. They went to Mossie Flynn’s.’

  Strange tourists, thought Pidge.

  Brigit began to yawn and immediately said that she wasn’t a bit tired. The more that she declared that she wasn’t tired, the bigger the yawns.

  ‘Honest!’ she lied, ‘the rest of me isn’t a bit tired, only my mouth.’ Her eyelids started to close.

  ‘No nonsense now, Brigit. You couldn’t keep your eyelids open if you pinned them up with clothes-pegs,’ Auntie Bina said.

  ‘Could we try?’ She chanced.

  ‘Bed for you. Come on now.’

  Reluctantly Brigit submitted to being washed, said good-night to Pidge and went ahead of Auntie Bina up the ladder-stair, that led to the two small bedrooms in the loft.

  Pidge left his place at the table and went to the old-fashioned hearth.

  There were two little stone seats built into the hearth, one on either side of the fire. You could sit in there and see right up the chimney to where a patch of the sky showed at the top. He hunched up his knees to make a bony lectern on which to rest his pages of Patrick’s writings. He settled himself to examine them in comfort.

  They were old but Pidge couldn’t guess how old. There was a musty smell from them with some other fragrance mingling in; something like camphor mixed with old rose petals. The pages were stiff and held together by worn leather thongs.

  ‘I know what they are!’ he cried joyfully. ‘They are part of an old Celtic manuscript, written and painted long ago by a monk sitting all alone in his little beehive cell in one of the monasteries. Well, isn’t that a piece of luck! I can just imagine him—making his own colours because he couldn’t very well buy them when there weren’t any shops, and probably his fingers nearly dropping off with cold in the winter—his nose too, I wouldn’t be surprised!’

  He turned the title page and saw that the next page was decorated with many colours, now faded.

  At first glance, he had the impression of an elaborate pattern rolling smoothly in loops and spirals all over the page, but worked at with careful control. Then he saw that the pattern had some animals inside it; impossible animals, created not by nature but out of the dreams of man.

  Oh, he wondered, am I really touching paper that was made and used by one of those far away monks? Did he have to do a lot of this work by rushlight in the evenings or in the dark days of winter? Whatever would he think of electricity or printing machines or photography or anything you could buy in Woolworths? But how can I be? All the old manuscripts have long since been gathered into museums and universities and are looked on as great treasures. This one must be some sort of fake.

  He was turning to the next page when a loose bit fell out. He managed to grab it before it fell into the fire; and it was then that he heard the voice in the chimney.

  Imprison it in iron, it whispered.

  Pidge froze into a statue of himself. He didn’t dare move. He sat with his eyes staring straight ahead, not seeing anything, but feeling with the back of his neck. After a long, long moment of this, he tried to make his head vanish inside his body like a tortoise pulling into his shell.

  It was as though he were getting ready to receive a blow on the head.

  Don’t be afraid, said the Voice. I am your friend.

  Oh, what’ll I do, thought Pidge fearfully.

  Am I hurting you? the Voice asked with infinite gentleness.

  ‘No.’

  Believe in my friendship.

  ‘But, I’m afraid.’

  Listen! said the Voice.

  Music flooded down the chimney as if it were water surging over the edge of a fall. It hushed—and there was a down-pouring of perfumed light, in accord with the clear and perfect notes of a solitary flute, in which the light rejoiced and danced.

  It all faded and whispered away.

  Look up!

  Pidge looked up and saw the night-time. It was filled with glittering stars.

  I write my name, said the Voice.

  Out of the multitude, the biggest and the brightest of the stars formed the word:

  Pidge felt his whole body shaking violently. Slowly he realized that it was Auntie Bina and she was saying:

  ‘Wake up! Are you mad? You could fall into the fire, sitting there asleep.’

  So it was a dream; a marvellous dream and so real.

  He stared up the chimney.

  It was as always; vast and wide and sooty—nothing wonderful there. The sky had clouded over. Not one single star shone through the heavy blanket of darkness.

  Auntie Bina was in a typically talkative mood. She flung herself into a humorous retelling of the principal events of her day. Mostly it concerned her daily battle of wits with a very cunning little hen. For over a week now, she had been laying her eggs in a secret place. Auntie Bina had been tracking her. Even so the little hen was still winning. She wouldn’t leave the farmyard if anyone were looking, but pretended to search for delicacies on the ground, while she watched with her bright eyes all the time. But as soon as the yard was deserted—she was off. She was clever enough to keep in cover as well and kept to the hedges and walls, and she wouldn’t dream of walking down the middle of a field, in case she’d be seen.

  Pidge couldn’t listen at first while he still marvelled at his wonderful dream—but, gradually, his mind was opened to her voice. Every word she said took him a little step away from the marvel, yet it seemed to him that he would never entirely lose it. It made him happy to think that he owned it forever and that, whenever he wanted to, he could recall it in his mind.

  At length, it was time for bed.

  He raised the latch on his bedroom door and stepped inside the little room’s tight snugness. He closed the door gently, so as not to disturb Brigit, whose breathing he could hear through the partition. He sat on his bed and carefully opened the tattered book. As he did so, the loose page fluttered out again, almost as though it were trying to get away from him. Pidge snatched it up before it touched the floor and leaned forward to get the best of the light. />
  Now that he could see it properly, he discovered that it wasn’t one page at all but two stuck together. At least, they had been stuck together once, but they were now splitting apart.

  The top page was undecorated except for a large drawing of a cross. Beneath the cross there was some faint writing in big letters. The writing was in latin.

  He could read it but he could only understand one or two of the words. He read:

  Well, In Saecula Saeculorum Amen—meant forever and ever, so be it. That was simple. He had heard it said in prayers. And Patricus must be latin for Patrick. There was something about Sic in it. Did it mean someone was sick? And Verbis—did it mean that someone was sick of his verbs? His Verbis? Or was it an ancient cure for someone who was ill?

  What a pity I’m only ten and haven’t started to learn latin yet or I could easily solve this puzzle, he told himself. I’ll find out what it means, if I can. A scholar would know. I wonder if the underneath page will be more interesting?

  It was funny but he couldn’t really see what it was all about. As soon as he looked at any part of it, the bits that he wasn’t looking at began to shift and change on the page. He could nearly see it happening out of the corner of his eye. He made his eyes search every inch of it as fast as he could but he was never quick enough to see anything happen. Each time, as soon as his gaze moved on from one piece of it, that piece began to move. No matter how quickly he returned his attention to it, he couldn’t catch it in time. That bit would then be still—while the bit beside it would tempt him to look there by seeming to glide or dance or just tremble.

  He shut his eyes tight and squeezed his lids together with all the strength he could manage. When his eyes were as tight as tight could be, he opened them as suddenly as could ever be possible and looked commandingly at the page.

  He saw it then.

  It was a snake.

  Serpens! he thought. That’s what the writing is about.

  It was odd in that it didn’t look painted on the page at all. It looked carved somehow—carved out of green glass. It was extraordinary as well, that one moment he could see nothing, the next moment, there was this vivid, brilliant thing; as if curtains had been pulled aside by an invisible hand.

  As if the snake had wished itself to be seen.

  It was long and thin and twisted into the most intricate of looping patterns. Its head looked as though it might be alive but was pretending not to be. The split tongue seemed to flicker, and did its eyes just slide a fraction of an inch?

  A pinpoint of light appeared in its eyes and flared into a blue spark. Pidge stared, as it grew bigger.

  The light appeared to have the power to hold him and draw him into a perilous other world; it was so compelling. To his horror, he found that he was unable to resist. The eyes vanished and he was being pulled into a dark forest where the trees were evilly alive and pale wicked flowers waited to catch hold of him. It was a hideous world and its grasses were reaching out to whip round his ankles and imprison him forever.

  Then Auntie Bina finished her prayers and got into her bed and made the springs creak. This ordinary thing broke the dream in pieces and Pidge woke up to find that the page had gone!

  It had been in his hand and it had vanished!

  The first feeling that rushed into him, filling him from top to toe with the most exalted relief, was pure delight that the ugly thing had gone. Instantly came the memory of the Voice in the chimney-dream which had said, or commanded, that he imprison it in iron and he knew that he must find it whatever happened. He dropped to his knees to look under the bed.

  There it was, half-way through a crack in the floorboards; could it have been trying to escape?

  Pidge reached in under the bed and caught it. He took Patrick’s page with the latin writing and in it he wrapped the snake page. He roughly folded them in half and then in quarters and held them tightly in his fist. He waited for Auntie Bina to fall asleep. He listened for her first snore.

  When it came, it sounded beautiful and musical and human. I’d never have believed I’d think that, Pidge remarked to himself.

  He left his room and crept down into the dark kitchen. There was no light at all from the fire. Auntie Bina had banked up the burning turf with soft white ashes to keep the fire living all night. Some houses had fires that hadn’t gone out for two hundred years or more.

  Kneeling down, he blew some of the ashes away and coaxed the turf to provide a little light.

  By the side of the hearth, Auntie Bina kept her bastable oven; a strong, iron pot oven with a flat lid and a lug at each side to hook onto the crook that hung down the chimney. It had three little legs so that, if you liked, you could cook with it on the hearth by lighting a small, separate fire under it and laying the red sods of glowing turf on the lid. It could stew, bake or roast food.

  Pidge glanced at it and realized at once that it was exactly the prison he needed. He lifted the heavy iron lid and laid the folded pages on the oven’s floor. They fluttered, seemingly in protest. He stood up and reached from the mantle-piece an old flat-iron and he laid it on the pages as an iron obstruction, before putting on the lid. To be really safe, he inserted the tongs through the half-oval handle on top of the lid and left them resting their iron weight as a further hindrance.

  He carefully scooped up a few small shovel-fulls of ashes and re-banked the fire.

  Then he went cheerfully to bed.

  The night had turned wet and it was so pleasant to lie in bed listening to the rain picking at the windows.

  He was snug and felt safe and warm. The spectacular sky must have only meant rain, after all. He turned over and snuggled further down, keeping an ear outside the covers to listen to the rain.

  At that moment, a very powerful motor-bike roared into life just below his window. It revved a couple of times and then it was off. By the sound it made, he judged that it was leaping over a wall and then the noise began to diminish, as the bike went further away.

  Pidge jumped out of bed and ran to look out. But he was too late.

  Whoever it was had now gone and he could see almost nothing anyway, through the glaze of the rain.

  He got back into bed.

  It wasn’t very nice to think that whoever it was might have been watching him through the window while he was in the kitchen.

  The iron prison must have done the trick, he thought.

  He was just beginning to wonder why Auntie Bina or Brigit hadn’t been disturbed by the noise, when he fell asleep.

  Chapter 3

  PIDGE woke suddenly, his heart banging a little bit, but it was only the morning light on his face that disturbed him. He lay still as a stone for a while, thinking over the strange events of yesterday. The long, calm hours of sleep between evening and morning had taken away the realness of it all and diminished it of its life, so that now it was no more than something experienced in a passive way, like a film. But the gap of night did not blot out a small core of knowledge that remained inside his head, stripped of drama and standing true; yesterday, and all it had held, had happened all right.

  He slipped out of bed and began to dress. He had better retrieve the page before Auntie Bina decided to bake bread.

  It must be very early, he thought. I’m the first one up. No sound from the kitchen and quietness everywhere.

  In the stillness, the latch on his bedroom door squeaked loudly enough to awaken even Brigit. He waited a second before going down to the kitchen but nobody stirred.

  The fire looked lifeless and grey in the sunlight and the tongs still rested on the lid of the oven. In two seconds, he had the dreadful page in his hand. He unfolded it and looked at it, half expecting the snake to leap out of the page and strike its fangs into his hand.

  But the snake dutifully decorated the page, and what struck him now was its beauty. There was no trace of the wicked white flowers, or the trees with evil life, or the ensnaring grass. He must have completely imagined them.

  Still, there was somethin
g about the snake that was more than just painting. He re-folded the page, stuffed it inside his shirt and went back up to his bedroom.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Brigit’s voice as he closed the door behind him. ‘Where were you?’

  He looked up. Brigit’s hands gripped the top of the partition but the rest of her was lost from view. She was striving to look over at him and was pulling herself up with her toes dug into the wooden wall. Her head appeared briefly and then she slid back down. Having disappeared for a few seconds, she struggled back up again.

  ‘Well?’

  She vanished once more.

  He waited until her head was there again.

  ‘I was just downstairs.’

  Brigit accepted this answer without question; she was often just somewhere herself.

  ‘Did you hear the rustlers in the night?’ she asked, hooking herself over the edge of the partition with her elbows.

  ‘What rustlers?’ he asked, startled.

  ‘Didn’t you hear them? They made their getaway on a motor-bike.’

  So Brigit had heard it too.

  ‘Maybe you were dreaming,’ he offered hopefully.

  ‘No, I wasn’t. It was too plain. Dreams are fuzzy and they’ve got chocolate and sweets in them. And icing sugar and bikes. I’ll bet you anything, they’ve rustled the pig.’

  ‘Ah, who would want to rustle a pig!’

  ‘Pig-rustlers! Gangsters on motor-bikes; “Steal a pig one minute and off to a Dinner Dance the next,” is what they say. They don’t care a straw for anyone.’

  ‘I don’t know where you get your notions, Brigit.’

  ‘I get them from nowhere. They just come—and why are you up so early?’

  ‘I thought I’d go and look for mushrooms,’ he said. He felt guilty about telling her a lie, but for the moment he didn’t know what else to do.

  ‘Good!’ she declared. ‘I won’t be long getting dressed. Wait a few minutes, will you?’

  Right away, they found mushrooms enough for breakfast in the top half of Grangefield; and feeling very hungry now, they were just deciding to turn for home, when they saw Old Mossie Flynn huffing and puffing as he climbed the stone wall into the field.